NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—One day after the Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity blamed him for the historic plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, former President Barack Obama agreed to stop making stocks tumble.

“Sean Hannity has accused me of making the stock market go down,” Obama told reporters on Tuesday morning. “All I have to say is, ‘Guilty as charged.’ ”

A visibly chastened Obama said that, at first, he thought that he had gotten away with making the stock market crash, but when he saw Hannity blame him on Fox, “I knew I had been busted.”

Obama offered scant explanation for why he had made stocks crash on Monday. “I guess since leaving the White House I haven’t really found enough ways to fill my time, so tanking the stock market seemed like something to do,” he said. “But I know that’s not a good excuse. The fact is, I caused a lot of folks a lot of pain yesterday, and for that I am very, very sorry.”

He said that he would “get to work right away” to return stocks to their previously lofty levels. “I made the stock market go down, and, darn it, I can make it go up again,” he said.